"We're are calling upon you for any kind of help for 43 Kurdish immigrants who having applied for political asylum were immediately given a deportation order by the Greek police in Hania, Crete and so taken from Hania to the Rodopi region of northern Greece.

Now after an outrageous violation of their rights police by the they are in Redopi. Of the 43 Kurdish immigrants, two are women, one, four and half months pregnant and four are minors.

Now they are in the Iasmou police department, Komotini, Rodopi and the detention centre in Renna, Rodopi. Any help from citizens should be sent there."

Here is a quiz and anyone who can answer all three questions will win a special prize. Either a cabinet position in the EU parliament or a memorial cup.

1 Can you name a Eurovison song contest winner, apart from Abba?

2 Can you name a Eurovision winner from a country other than your own?

3 Can you name a song that they sang other than their Eurovision entry?

Given that the contest has been on the air since the 1950's it is remarkable how little music it has produced that people can actually remember. Every year a parade of badly dressed clowns serve up the blandest, most forgettable music the human mind can devise and so after 1000's of songs we only ever remember ABBA. I suppose it is a testament to Swedish resilience that they ever managed to live down their 1970's victory since for virtually everyone else winning Eurovision has been a one way ticket to oblivion.

The post was prompted by the news that the Czech republic is pulling out of the contest due to record low viewing figures. A moment of sanity which we can only hope proves as contagious as swine flu. Who wants to spend four hours hearing European politics set to bad disco? Last year I jokingly predicted who would get the maximum score from each country in Eastern Europe based on their geopolitical alliances with 80% accuracy much to the amazement of my daughter, who being only eight at the time thought people voted for songs because they sounded nice. Oh the naivity of the young.

For many it seems Eurovision the continuation of politics by other means. Carl Von Clauswitz is humming in his grave.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Amidst protests by local human rights activists refugees on the Greek island of Chios were taken to detention centres on the Greek mainland in handcuffs. Around 60 recently arrived immigrants were taken by ferry from the island in the northern Aegeon to the the Greek - Turkish border region of Evros. Amongst those relocated were an 15 year old Somalian boy forced to leave behind his mother on the island.

According to Greek national daily, Eleutherotypia, attempts by a 17 year old Palestinian detainee to claim asylum during the transfer were ignored despite the presence of a lawyer whose repeated pleas that the teenager be given his rights under UN treaties signed by Greece were dismissed.

Unconfirmed reports on the Indy.gr news site claim that previous deportations on the 16th July ended up with the refugees being dumped near the Greek - Turkish border. It should be noted that the area is heavily mined and that every year tens of those attempting to cross into Greece from Turkey fall victims to the regions numerous minefields.

Greece has been repeatedly accused of violating international agreements concerning the handling of unaccompanied minors by organisations such as Amnesty International. In addition courts in Germany has refused to deport refugees back to Greece citing the country’s unwillingness to abide by EU and other international treaties concerning the treatment of undocumented immigrants under 16.

The recent upsurge in enforced deportations has followed in the wake of the ruling New Democracy’s poor showing in the the recent European parliamentary elections. In clamping down on illegal immigration in Athens and the Aegean islands prime minister, Kostas Karamanlis is seeking to stem the flow of votes to the far right LAOS party which sent two representatives to Brussels by adopting a get tough policy on protesters and undocumented immigrants.

However, the official policy of “cleaning up” immigrant neighbourhoods has also given rise to growing militant activity on the party of the country’s ultra - nationalist groups with several well - documented cases of the police turning a blind eye to racist groups attacking buildings and areas frequented by foreigners such as Agios Pantelimenos section in central Athens which has witnessed several incidents involving member of the neo nazi Chysi Aygi organisation.

As many of you who read this blog know one of my passions is for citizen journalism, an amorphous term that covers any number of sins and situations but which roughly means the covering of news stories by non-media professionals. The rise of the internet and especially sites that allow people to post their own material on the web have also allowed people to not only comment on what is happening in the news but also produce the news themselves.

At the same time traditional media organisations such as newspapers have entered a period of crisis and introspection. It is clear now that In America, Europe and many other parts of the world the internet has eroded (possibly fatally?) the traditional business models on which these organisations operate.

For many this is a source of great trepidation not simply because of loss of job security but also due to the wider social and political implications of having a weakened media sector. However, recently I have come across two news stories which makes it much harder for me I find it hard to sympathise with those in the news industry .

The first is the announcement by the Associated Press news agency that it is now going to use digital rights management (DRM) technology to control who uses its material. Tom Curley, A.P.’s president and chief executive put it more succinctly, when he said that nobody would be allowed to use their material without signing an agreement. In everyday terms this means that anyone who copies even a headline or a link without permission may find themselves in court facing charges.

The aim of this measure is to claw back revenue being lost by the newspaper industry to internet sites. Somehow I feel that King Canute has returned to our wired age and instead of demanding the tides not roll back in has commanded that people do not copy and paste. I think that the results are as predictable as Canute’s efforts in the sea off Bosham.

DRM has proven stunningly ineffective in the music industry where 95% downloaded music is illegal. In addition we see whole industries devoted to the use of such illegal products. Do the nice people at Apple really believe that your average customer walks around with thousands of dollars of legally obtained music in their pocket? If that were true we’d all be mugging ipod users at the drop of a hat since their devices would be worth more, ounce for ounce than platinum.

By turning journalism into a graduate career the news industry has made it less and less accessible as an option for huge sections of the population. The demand for university qualifications and the ubiquitous use of unpaid internships means that only those from well off backgrounds can afford to the lengthy and costly process of becoming a professional journalist.

Once again education is used as an agent of social exclusion and when that fails the oiks can simply be starved out by demanding that they work without pay for years on end.

Unlike say medicine, law or architecture the growing demands for better and better qualifications in journalism seem to make little sense to outsiders. Although there is a whole raft of skills that have to be acquired by the professional reporter, the job does not require, in most cases the assimilation of a vast body of knowledge as is the case with say, medicine. Instead it depends on the ability to turn amorphous, often contradictory bits of information into readable copy. A skill most likely to be learnt through practice rather than academic study.

Indeed for most of the last 400 years this is exactly what happened since people trained on the job, most often without the need for a university education. Can anyone really say that today’s media organisations, with their news rooms full of BA’s, MAs and whatnot produce a higher quality product than ever before?

As with the case of Associated Press, the news industry has shown that it is, in fact all about exclusion. Building chain fences both socially and economically. So when media professionals complain about bloggers and others attacking them or taking jobs then it’s very hard to feel sympathy for those who have spent their whole lives trying to benefit from a system that is designed to keep others out.

Thankfully, these tactics are becoming less and less viable as the internet becomes a driving force in the way we produce and consume news. The ability of ordinary people from every social stratum to contribute means that more and more groups can take part in deciding what becomes news, what is considered important and how it is interpreted.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Like many of you, I am worried about the Swine Flu pandemic that is raging across the globe and so I, too am looking for ways in which to keep myself and loved ones safe should the worst happen.

So I would like to share some words of advice given by Bishop Anthimos, one of the Greek Orthodox church's most senior figures when asked about whether the church would change Holy Communion procedures given the flu epidemic. According to the bishop there is no need to worry as the Communion serving spoons are made of silver which kills microbes.

It's only 11am and already I've been tear gassed and broke my personal best in the 200m sprint thanks to the MAT (Greek riot police). What a way to start your day. I haven't even had chance to get a coffee and already the forces of law and order are chasing me down the city's main streets.It's 35C and and I'm desperately trying to make sure I'm not the at the back of the bunch of protesters running away from the flash grenades and clouds of tear gas wafting down the road outside Thessaloniki's central courts. Not helping matters are the newly formed Delta motorcycle cops who have taken a leaf out of the Iranian police public order manual and are chasing down demonstrators with their bikes.

But I have gotten ahead of myself, it seems. This morning I decided that I would cover the case of Ilias Nikolaos who was applying for bail after being arrested and charged with arson in January. I thought I might be able to take some photos and write something for the blog or perhaps one of the other sites I contribute to. When I got to the court rooms the riot police were in position around the building so I guessed that I had chosen the right venue, however, I couldn't see any protesters outside. Wandering in everything seemed quiet so I guessed that I'd probably missed whatever had happened. I was just about to leave when I suddenly heard people chanting slogans and almost immediately afterwards a stream of young people descended the central staircases, heading for the front doors.

Next thing I knew the riot police stationed at the rear were donning helmets and getting ready to invade the court building from the other side. With my long hair and black t-shirt I figured there was little chance I'd be mistaken for a lawyer or court employee so I legged it out the front door with everyone else, grabbing my camera out of my bag on the way.

As the demonstrators, mostly anarchists from the city's many communes, gathered outside the riot police decided to go into action and started throwing flash grenades and lobbing tear gas cannisters at anyone in the vacinity and so pausing briefly to take pictures I followed the crowds knowing full well that anyone found on their own is a target for the local goon squad who hit first and don't bother with questions afterwards.

Afterwards it was off for coffee with friends in order to get a caffeine hit to go with my adrenaline rush.

Obviously the good people at Amazon.com follow the golden rule of drug dealing, "don't sample the product", otherwise someone might have come across Bacon's word of wisdom and so would have avoided the Great Kindle Debacle. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about (believe me, I don't blame you) Amazon recently decided that it would retroactively reverse purchase decisions concerning the electronic version of George Orwell's 1984 on its Kindle e-book reader.

On finding out that the version they were selling was in fact not licensed for the North American market they decided to wipe it off everyone's Kindle (which connects to the internet via Wi- Fi) without actually asking permission. So people who had bought the book through Amazon woke up to find that there edition had suddenly vanished (click here for more details from New York Times).

Although I do not own a Kindle (Call me dumb but shelling out 300 dollars to read a book seems a mite stoopid) the story caught my attention as it does concern the idea of copyright and DRM (digital rights management). The first point that struck me was why is a book written over 50 years ago is still covered by copyright, you'd have thought that half a century was more than enough time to make your money on any piece of writing.

Second and perhaps more importantly the whole Kindle furor has raised issues about who gets to decide what you see, read and listen to. Apparently, people can wipe stuff off your hardware without your permission and it is all perfectly legal. At least that is Amazon's argument according to company spokesman, Drew Herdener,

"When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers' devices, and refunded customers,"Yes, but without asking them first, Drew. So what's next? Spyware from itunes to check you have only legitimate downloads on your ipod? Or perhaps a DVD that silently contacts the authorities should you try to feed it an illegally obtained copy of Desperate Housewives? Why stop there? Perhaps we should allow the police to get serious about such copyright abuses and since 95% of all music downloads are illegal they shouldn't need to bother with such nit-picking details as a warrant since it is obvious, virtually everyone is guilty.

Actually, the whole Kindle story smacks of the kind of stupidity that comes from studying too much for that law degree/MBA instead of getting an education. You can be sure that whoever made this call spent four years demanding that the campus library stay open 24/7 and that Saturdays should be considered a normal working day for staff. How else can you explain a decision that has cost millions in bad publicity and made a laughing stock of the product Amazon is trying so hard to launch. This is stupid gone to college, dumb with a degree, morons with MBAs.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

The hottest day of the year so far and I'm stuck in the city. It's just 10am and already the temperature is in the mid 30's C, which means that by the afternoon it's going to be well over 40 degrees Celcius (or a couple of gazillion in Fahrenheit).

The worst part of a heatwave is that you don't sleep well, the thermometer dropped to below 30 only way after midnight yesterday (sorry, today).

Ahh, the smell of elections is in the air. You can tell that general elections are almost upon us when the ruling party starts announcing legislation that will give more people jobs in the public sector. Like so many of its predecessors the current conservative New Democracy party has proposed legislation that would lead to 80,000 employees on short term contracts with the civil service being given permanent jobs.

Although 80,000 doesn't sound like a big number in a nation of 11 million, it does represent a lot of families and more importantly gives a boost to the system of patron - client relations which forms the corner stone of the two major parties power structure here in Greece.

The promise of a permanent civil service position is a powerful incentive to many sick of the vaguaries of the country's private sector where labour laws are rarely ever applied. Many long for the security of a job where your wage is not subject to the whims or caprices of a boss who will fire you at the drop of the hat if they can find somebody willing to do you job for less money or not demand statutory health benefits.. Of course, you could report this to the relevent authorities, just like you could buy a lottery ticket and become a millionaire. The odds of success are about the same.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Early on Sunday morning hundreds of members of the Greek police force raided an unofficial refugee camp in the Greek port of Patras as part of an nationwide 'clean sweep" operation. The camp which has been in existence for nearly a decade was home to hundreds of immigrants, mainly from Afghanistan hoping to sneak aboard trucks headed for Italy.

Using bulldozers the local authorities razed to the ground the shacks and huts that until recently housed an estimated 150 people. Several fires were reported as a result of the raid and according to official police sources 44 minors were detained along with 30 adults who will be held in a reception centre until they are deported. The raid has been criticised as "inhuman" and called a "pogrom" by the left wing SYRIZA party and the Greek Communist party.

The ruling New Democracy party has also announced that it will set up internment camps throughout the country to house those who do not have a legal right to stay in the country. It should be noted that at present Greece grants asylum to 0.1% of those who apply for it and has been repeatedly criticised by Amnesty International, other European governments and the UNHCR for its treatment of refugees and immigrants.

On the other hand the latest poll carried out by Public Issue found that 93% of those questioned thought that Greece could not take in any more immigrants and that 62% said that immigration is probably harming Greece.

Stung by his party's poor showing in the recent European elections prime minister Kostas Karamanlis has decided to get tough on the issue of immigration in order to avoid losing more support to the far right LAOS party. With the possibility of general elections in either September or March 2010 at the latest Karamanlis is hoping that a tough stance on crime and immigrants will help bring back voters who have deserted the party in droves after two years of corruption and influence peddling scandals involving several government ministers

Sunday, July 12, 2009

I can't stand it anymore. The blank, remorseful stare, the empty glances. She knows. I can't put it into words but she knows that there is someone else. We've have had our estrangements, even separations but it was never like this, the long stretches when I cannot even bring myself to look at her, let along touch her.

I have fallen out of love with my television set. I only realised it when it suddenly occurred to me that I haven't switched it on for days. It wasn't something I'd planned, some kind of belated resolution but rather the result of fact that we have nothing to offer each other any more. We've been drifting apart for the last few years, she had her interests, I had my own, and so we have had less and less in common.

She will always be a special part of my life, how could it be otherwise, we've spent so long together. But I think that we have to be honest with each other. The magic has gone, we are simply going through the motions.

Thanks to the actions of Capt Nick and his valiant crew of white supremacists another cargo vessels containing hundreds of undesirables finds its rightful place at the bottom of the Med. It is thanks to people like Nick Griffin that Fortress Europe is safe from the unwashed hoardes who threaten to swamp our sacred homeland. Thanks Nick, the next torpedo is on us.

"Boats carrying illegal migrants to Europe should be sunk Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National party, said yesterday.

In a provocative intervention, Griffin, elected to the European parliament last month, called on the EU to introduce "very tough" measures to prevent illegal migrants entering Europe from Africa.

"I didn't say anyone should be murdered at sea – I say boats should be sunk, they can throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya," Griffin said."

Sometimes words escape you. Sometimes you read or hear something so outrageous that your mind at first fails to fully comprehend the significance of it. I read in today's Guardian that the head of British far right BNP party, Nick Griffins said that the EU should sink ships carrying immigrants to Europe.

So firing upon innocent people and leaving them to die in open seas is OK. What the hell? They're not "civilised", so they wouldn't be able to fit in with "advanced" societies that produce such morally upstanding individuals as Griffin. And to think this piece of trash was elected the European parliament last month.

"Boats carrying illegal migrants to Europe should be sunk Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National party, said yesterday.

In a provocative intervention, Griffin, elected to the European parliament last month, called on the EU to introduce "very tough" measures to prevent illegal migrants entering Europe from Africa.

"I didn't say anyone should be murdered at sea – I say boats should be sunk, they can throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya," Griffin said."

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

It has been a frenetic few days with so many things happening that it is hard to keep track of it all. Weddings, demos, meetings, exhibitions, and of course lots of pictures. Yesterday for example, I went on a march, then to a lesson, back to the demo and off to an open air exhibition held by the Stereosis photography group where I spent the rest of the evening .

During the course of yesterday's anti - racism march in Athens members of far right groups posing as "concerned citizens" were filmed and photographed carrying clubs and attempting to throw Molotov cocktails at demonstrators. All this while the riot police (MAT) walked alongside them and made no attempt to intervene.

The ruling New Democracy party has also announced that it will set up internment camps throughout the country to house those who do not have a legal right to stay in the country. It should be noted that at present Greece grants asylum to 0.1% of those who apply for it and has been repeatedly criticised by Amnesty International, other European governments and the UNHCR for its treatment of refugees and immigrants.

On the other hand the latest poll carried out by Public Issue found that 93% of those questioned thought that Greece could not take in any more immigrants and that 62% said that immigration is probably harming Greece.

Stung by his party's poor showing in the recent European elections prime minister Kostas Karamanlis has decided to get tough on the issue of immigration in order to avoid losing more support to the far right LAOS party. With the possibility of general elections in either September or March 2010 at the latest Karamanlis is hoping that a tough stance on crime and immigrants will help bring back voters who have deserted the party in droves after two years of corruption and influence peddling scandals involving several government ministers.

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

"SALONICA is about Thessaloniki, the northern Greek city at the crossroads of the Orient and Europe, the Balkans and the Mediterranean. The film tells life stories, resembling short novels, which unite to relate a more general story involving many protagonists and interwoven plots – resulting in a cinematic narrative of Thessaloniki.

What makes this city historically unique is the fact that for 450 years it was mainly Jewish and the predominant language was Spanish. This is because Thessaloniki was populated by the Jews who were expelled from Catholic Spain in 1492 and who subsequently found refuge in the Ottoman Empire – up until their almost total annihilation by the Germans during the Shoah in 1943.

The history of the Jews of Salonica is an unfamiliar, yet profoundly European story. It is a story that echoes across the whole Mediterranean region from Spain to Italy and from the Balkans to Turkey. It is unique, because there has never been another predominantly Jewish city of this size anywhere in Europe.

Against this background, SALONICA takes a close look at the city today, meeting very different people – Jewish survivors, Russian immigrants, gypsies, Greek-Macedonian nationalists – thereby telling of the city’s modern reality, a display of historical layers and stories. From a great variety of real life stories SALONICA paints a cinematic fresco of a place and a century torn apart by violence."

I was there when after a meeting people decided to tear down the fence surrounding the Pavlou Mela army camp in Thessaloniki, partly to stop one of the city's last remaining open areas being turned into a concrete tomb, partly to forstall any effort by the government in Athens to turn it into an internment camp for immigrants.

Sunday, July 05, 2009

Just looking through the pictures I took yesterday. I was asked to take pictures of a wedding, something I found more nerve wracking than covering a riot. At least with protests and demos there are always more chances to take another photograph, but if I made a mess of something during the ceremony then there is no way to go back and do it all over again.

Usually when I go out and photograph an event I just need a handful of images that work and I don't need to worry about the rest. That logic doesn't work in the case of weddings as everyone wants their picture taken and there no excuses for mucking things up.

The situation wasn't helped by the fact that is was sweltering inside the church so half the time my glasses fogged up making focusing a mite difficult. Just as well there were no extra lights for video as I think the bride and groom would have melted on the spot.

Saturday, July 04, 2009

I just finished reading an article by Charles Arthur on the Guardian website that seems to imply blogging is on its way out, the victim of its younger, flashier cousins, Facebook and Twitter. According to a Technorati study quoted in the New York Times as well just 7.4 million of the 133 million blogs in existence were updated in the three months covered. Actually, this sounds about right, as when I think of all the blogs I have set up for myself or others over the last few years most have fallen by the wayside. The result of lack of interest of my part and that of my students.

Ironically, I blog far more frequently on this blog now than in the past, usually finding time to add something most days whereas when I started I doubt if I posted more than once a week, sometimes less. I guess that blogging is not for everyone. If you are interested in keeping in contact with your friends and family then Facebook makes far more sense. Also Twitter is much easier to handle since all you have to do is write no more than a handful of sentences, if that.

I think it was inevitable that blogs, which were some of the first platforms that allowed non - technically minded folk to add stuff to the internet would cede their role to more suitable applications. One size does not fit all and for every person who wants to write a 2000 word op - ed there are hundreds who just want to know what their friends did last night at the party.

Similarly, the whole "wow" factor that goes with any new innovation also wears off and what you're are left with is a tool, which has to be used well if you want to get people's attention. So blogging has become just another way of connecting with others on the web, part of a range of ways of communicating with a wider audience. As a result the initial wave of people starting blogs was never going to be sustainable.

Also I have noticed that the way blogs are being used is changing, origially they were considered to be some kind of diary which I suppose people were meant to keep up for years. Now blogs are being set up for a specific duration, designed to get a message out and then left when no longer needed.

Actually, because we have got over the hype connected with blogs and the whole web 2.0 phase we can now think about much more fundemental questions such as what is it I want to share? Now I guess people are thinking more carefully about what they want to say as opposed to simply stating that they have a presence on the internet. Once again when the technology becomes boring the social implications become fascinating.

Friday, July 03, 2009

First of all, I'd like to say thank you to everyone who expressed their concern on the blog and elsewhere. I spoke to Lydia again and she was bright and breezy today, so it seems that yesterday's fears were groundless. However, no TV, PC or games for the next couple of days and plenty of rest.

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Sometimes life has a way of slamming the complacency right out of you. Today I received the call that parents dread, "your child has had an accident". Lydia fell while playing and banged her head, so it was off to the ER for X-rays and tests. Thankfully, it seems that no damage has been done but the doctors say that we should keep an eye on her for the next few days. To tell you the truth I'd be much more reassured if they kept her in for observation as she had been vomiting and looked very pale, but the doctor who examined her seemed to think she'd be OK at home.

No sooner than I had absorbed this shock than I got another one, a very good friend sent me an SMS asking if I could visit him in Cyprus, he is quite seriously ill and while his condition is not critical I know that he could do with the support of friends at this difficult time. Having lost someone close to me recently I know just how important it is to devote time to friends and family.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

After finally getting my hand on a flash for my camera I couldn't wait to try it out and so I went to a concert on the seafront to see what was worth taking pictures of. I came across these guys, Nomo from Ann Arbour, Michigan. A tad more relaxed than the last gig I attended by the Spanish ska/punk band, BOIKOT which involved all manner of moshing and other high jinks.